Shivers Box Set: Darkening Around MeLegacy of DarknessThe Devil's EyeBlack Rose (Shivers (Harlequin E))

by Barbara J. Hancock

  “A pleasure as always, Morwenna,” he replied coolly. “You know my nephew, Tynan, of course?” Tynan bowed courteously and was subjected to a speculative scrutiny.

  “You are just like your father!” The instant the words burst from her, it was clear she wished them unsaid. Wringing her hands in helpless mortification, she continued, “What I mean is, Ruan was always slighter than Uther, less rugged. You resemble him in those ways.” It was a valiant effort, but, aware that she was making things worse, she broke off and turned helpless eyes back to Uther.

  Demelza stepped into the breach. “Yes, I often think that Tynan is the living spit of what Ruan was at his age,” she agreed calmly. “Now, Morwenna, do let me make you known to my cousin, Lucy. I cannot begin to tell you how delightful it is to have her here.”

  Morwenna’s eyes narrowed as she studied me, then flicked toward Uther, clearly assessing his reaction to me. A slow smile of satisfaction gleamed in her eyes. “How very slight you are!” she exclaimed, removing her cloak as she spoke and complacently arranging the neckline of her dress so that our attention was drawn to her full breasts. “Your figure is that of a child still. But how delightful for Tynan to have company close to his own age,” she told me indulgently, and my hands curled momentarily into fists. Dismissing my capacity as a rival, and relegating Tynan and I to the infancy, with those few words, she turned away from us. “I declare I am famished! But I know my dear Demelza will have laid on a veritable feast to greet me. Do give me your arm, dearest friend. I cannot wait to catch up on all your news.” Rudely, she turned her back on the rest of us and propelled Uther toward the dining room. Demelza, with the slightest hint of a flounce to her step, followed them.

  “Well, at least you are merely too thin!” Tynan whispered as we trailed disconsolately along in their wake. “I, on the other hand, bear a striking resemblance to a murderous lunatic. At least we only have to tolerate the sight of her fawning all over Uther for two nights. My stomach couldn’t stand much more.”

  From the outset of Morwenna’s visit, she and Demelza circled each other like rival cats. For all their supposed friendship, it was clear they were bitterly jealous of each other. Over lunch, the air was a flurry of extravagant, barbed compliments.

  “Demelza, I do so admire you for continuing to style your hair that way, in spite of changing fashions.”

  “Why, thank you, Morwenna dearest. I, on the other hand, wish I could cultivate your devil-may-care approach when it comes to clothes. But I find myself quite unable to wear just anything, simply because it happens to be in the latest mode.”

  “You are probably wise, my dear. At your age, one can never be too careful.”

  Uther rolled expressive eyes at me while Tynan remained disinterested, his fallen angel’s face bored. After a while, Morwenna grew tired of baiting Demelza and turned smouldering eyes to Uther.

  “Tell me how it comes about that a man with such elan as you has managed to remain unattached, my dear friend?” she murmured. “Can it be that you still hold a candle for your first love?” she asked archly, giving a throaty chuckle.

  “If I could remember who she was, I might be able to answer that question,” Uther replied.

  “Oh, come now!” Morwenna, stretching out a hand to stroke his forearm, appeared to have forgotten that they were not alone. “I distinctly remember one or two decidedly lover-like encounters between us when we were very young and even more once we became rather older.”

  “You will have me blushing, Morwenna.” Uther remained unruffled.

  “Although,” she continued, warming now to her theme, “if we are to be entirely accurate, your first love was Eleanor, was it not?”

  An uncomfortable silence descended. Demelza threw Morwenna a warning glance that flickered across to Tynan, but Her Ladyship merely laughed again. “Oh come now, Demelza! Do not look those daggers at me. Why, Tynan here must know that his mother was all but promised to Uther first before she met Ruan, surely?” She cast a glance around the table. The wooden faces that greeted her told their own tale. “Ah,” she said, momentarily silenced, “but this is ancient history, my darlings. Do tell me, Uther dearest, can it be true that there is really no lady in your life today?”

  Chapter Six

  Later that afternoon, I lay naked in Uther’s arms, my body jerking wildly as a violent orgasm tore through me. He, as always, was fully clothed and I had stopped asking why this love—if such it could be called—must be so one-sided. I knew he wanted me with the same fathomless desperation with which I craved him.

  As if he read my mind, he took my hand and placed it against the straining hardness of his erection. Shyly, I reached for the buttons on his breeches, but he forestalled me. “No, I will not be answerable for the consequences if you release me,” he growled, shuddering as my inexperienced fingers continued to caress him through the restraining cloth. “I want you to feel it, feel the power you have over me.” His golden gaze burned into mine. “One day, you will feel it here.” He pushed his fingers hard inside me and my muscles, still racked by sensual spasms, tightened eagerly around him. “And when that day comes, you will know what it is to weep in ecstasy.”

  “When?” I whispered hungrily. I wanted it to be now! Why must we wait?

  “One day very soon, Lucia.” Whenever he called me Lucia, his passion for me intensified to a point just beyond rational thought. He devoured me again with those lips that I wanted to spend my whole life tasting. This action effectively silenced my question for the time being, but, having given myself to him so completely already, I was eager to finish it. There was, after all, only a minor technicality left. Having decided that I wanted to make love to him, there were no considerations of decency left to me. I wondered what the reason for Uther’s odd reluctance could be. I was sure it was not morality or prudishness! Just then, his lips moved down my throat towards my breast and, unaccountably, I lost my train of thought.

  “Why does Demelza dislike Lady Morwenna?” I asked him later.

  He shrugged. “They have always been the competing beauties of the neighbourhood. Old rivalries die hard, I suppose.”

  “Lady Morwenna likes you very much,” I observed, pleating the eiderdown with nervous fingers. I was being presumptuous, and dared not meet his eyes.

  “Jealous, Lucy?” His voice was amused. Gripping my chin, he forced me to look up. “Did you think I was a monk?” he asked. I shook my head sadly. It was an admission of what I already knew. He and Morwenna had been—perhaps still were—lovers.

  “Morwenna is a passionate woman, married to an old man. It is not surprising that she should seek satisfaction elsewhere. And I am a man. It means nothing.”

  “Will you go to her tonight?” I hung my head again so that he could not see the pleading desperation in my eyes.

  “I may.” He rose and stretched, reminding me irresistibly of a large cat. “Would you like to come along and watch, little Lucy? Morwenna is very open-minded—I’m sure she would not object.” He laughed at the shudder of horror that rippled through me. Leaning over, he nipped my bare shoulder with sharp teeth. Numbly, I lifted my face up to him to be kissed. He studied me long and hard. “Don’t look at me that way!” he said harshly. “If you want me, Lucia, you will have to accept what I am…who I am.”

  With a muffled groan of frustration he walked out, leaving me staring after him in confusion.

  * * *

  “Good Lord, Uther, what was that awful caterwauling I heard from your room last night?” Tynan asked with a feigned lack of guile as we all met over breakfast. “One might almost think you had the kitchen cat trapped by its tail in there.”

  Lady Morwenna, unabashed, gave a throaty chuckle and Uther threw Tynan a look of intense dislike. I swallowed the hard, invidious lump in my throat and stared down at my plate. When I glanced up, Demelza’s expression drew my mind away from my own emotions. She appeared, for a brief, unguarded moment, totally bereft, like a mother who has just learned of the death of he
r child. The look was gone before anyone else noticed and, with no trace of any emotion, she invited Morwenna to join her on a trip to Wadebridge that morning. I declined the offer of a seat in their carriage and, instead, spent a peaceful hour curled up in a chair in the library. I was, however, drawn away from my book by the strains of the piano.

  The music was knife-sweet and haunting and I followed it to its source. The music room had windows on two sides and overlooked the highest point of the cliff so that, on entering, it appeared the whole room was soaring, untethered, across the ocean.

  Tynan was seated at the grand piano, his face rapt as his hands flew, with expert precision, across the keys. The familiar lock of hair flopped over his brow and his eyes were closed. His fingers told stories of satin sheets and writhing passion. I stood still in the doorway for long minutes, watching him and allowing the yearning beauty of his playing to consume me.

  “You can come in, you know,” he said eventually, without pausing.

  I bit my lip. “I did not think you had seen me,” I confessed, moving forward to stand at the piano.

  “I didn’t,” he replied, opening those incredible golden eyes and smiling up at me. “I smelled you. You smell fresh and new, like wild flowers when the rain has washed them.”

  I felt a blush stain my cheeks and, to cover my embarrassment, said, “I do not recognise the piece you are playing. It is beautiful. Who is the composer?”

  He finished with a flourish and bowed slightly from the waist. “It is very rough,” he confessed. “I have been sadly neglectful of my muse of late.” He shifted along the piano stool, making room for me. “Do you play?”

  I joined him and said, “Woefully badly. I was taught, but, when my father and I went to live in India, I was left very much to my own devices. I confess, with shame, that I was not disciplined enough to maintain any level of skill.”

  “Play something for me.” He watched my profile. “Make it of light and happiness. I never have enough of either.”

  I spread my fingers over the keys. Turning my head, I encountered a look of such intensity that it made me shiver. “My memory is not good….” I stated with a smile that was instantly reflected back at me.

  “Indulge me anyway,” he said softly.

  I began to play. It was an old, comforting lullaby that my father had sung to me when I was a child. The words came back to me and, hesitantly at first, I began to sing.

  “Calm be thy sleep as the infant slumbers

  Pure as the angel’s thoughts thy dreams

  May every joy this bright world numbers

  Shed o’er thee their mingled beams….”

  “And is your sleep calm, Cousin Lucy?” Tynan asked me when I had finished.

  “Why, yes,” I replied truthfully. “Generally it is.”

  “I envy you then,” he said with a sorrowful note in his voice. Before I could question the words, he began to play again. It was a simple, light-hearted duet which I knew, and I joined in, stumbling over some of the notes. As he laughed at me, the haunted look left him briefly. I thought how young and carefree he seemed, and how much it suited him.

  We finished with a flourishing crescendo, both of us giggling like schoolchildren. Our laughter faded abruptly as, clapping his hands together appreciatively, Uther strode into the room. His presence dominated the mood instantly. I had the oddest feeling that he was angry, but his smile could not have been more charming.

  “Why, Lucy, my dear.” His eyes were like a warm caress on my upturned countenance. My imagination presented me unbidden with a picture of him in Lady Morwenna’s bed the previous night. I glanced quickly away in case he caught a glimpse of my thoughts. “You play delightfully.”

  “You are very kind, sir, but also very untruthful.” I rose from the seat. I was unnerved by the sensation of him looming over me. It reminded me of other, more intimate moments. “I play very badly, as my cousin here will testify.”

  Tynan, however, had turned moodily away. He shuffled pages of scribbled music and made as if to leave. My heart was unexpectedly wrung with pity. “Why, Cousin Tynan, are you deserting me so soon?” I asked in a rallying tone, which won a reluctant, answering smile. “I had hoped my playing would not give you quite such a disgust of me. That we might even, perhaps, play together some more?” I rejoined him on the piano stool.

  After a minute of watching us through narrowed eyes as we selected our next piece, Uther turned sharply on his heel and left us.

  * * *

  I left Tynan at the piano, adding the finishing touches to his composition. My heart felt lighter. I rounded a corner of the corridor and stopped short in surprise to find Uther propped up against my bedroom door with his broad shoulders.

  “So you have managed to tear yourself away from him at last?” Fury blazed in the molten depths of his eyes as he jerked me roughly toward him. “You prefer his company—that of a callow boy—to mine?” His voice grated roughly in my ear. “You would rather he was here doing this to you….” His lips plundered mine. Desire, fanned into a furnace by his anger, flared between us instantly. His tongue was smooth and hard in my mouth, probing deeply as his hands slid to cup my breasts. My nipples reacted immediately, stiffening against the cloth of my gown. Frenziedly, he tore the tiny buttons of my bodice undone, freeing my breasts from the restraining cloth and pressing burning lips to them.

  We gave no thought to the public place we had chosen; there was no attempt at gentleness or patience. Uther hoisted my skirts up to my waist, pressing his muscular thigh up between my legs. As he did, the voices of Demelza and Morwenna, newly returned from their shopping expedition, rang out in the hall below.

  “Oh, no.” Uther forestalled me as I tried to pull away. “You have not answered my question.” As if we had all the time in the world, he slid his hand inside my bloomers and cupped the warmth between my legs. “You are so wet. Are you thinking of him?” I writhed in equal measures of fear and ecstasy, moaning his name. “Well?”

  “No, Uther, please,” I pressed eagerly against his passive hand, silently pleading.

  “Say it.” His hand remained still. The chatter and laughter below us increased as Demelza issued directions to Pascoe.

  “I don’t want him, Uther.” I was almost sobbing now. “I want you, only you.”

  “Good girl.” He moved his fingers. Deep, fast and hard, he rubbed the exquisitely sensitive nub that throbbed for his touch. “Tell me how it feels.” His voice was detached.

  “Uther, please. It feels so…so good….” I was almost sobbing, but whether it was with pleasure or panic I could not have said. The voices grew closer as they began to mount the staircase. “But they are coming.”

  He leaned in close and nuzzled my neck, laughter in his voice. “But what about you, little Lucy? Are you coming yet?” He showed no mercy, driving me ever onward, relentlessly flicking and stroking the taut, slippery little pearl. “Hurry up, Lucia, or this could become embarrassing.”

  I exploded in a sudden rush of violent, gasping pleasure. Pressing a swift kiss onto my lips, Uther tugged my skirts back into place and, with a flash of his wicked smile, turned to greet his sister and her guest just as they rounded the turn in the staircase. Still shuddering with erotic tremors, I entered my bedchamber an instant before I would be seen by the new arrivals.

  Throwing myself down on the bed, I buried my burning face in the cool cotton of the pillows. My mind was torn in two by conflicting emotions. Half of me wanted to linger in erotic recollection, while the other—saner—part of me cringed in shame. As much as I liked what Uther did to my body—and, oh! how much I liked it—I could not keep hiding from the truth. I did not like him, the man who could do what he had just done to me while another of his lovers was mere feet away. And, perhaps more importantly, I did not like the person I became when I was with him.

  * * *

  Dinner the next evening was a subdued affair, but I think we were all, perhaps for different reasons, secretly relieved that our g
uest had departed. When we repaired to the drawing room, conversation was stilted and I stifled a few yawns as we sipped our tea. Tynan had no such compunction. Stretching his legs out in front of him, he stuffed his hands into his pockets, lowered his chin to his chest and closed his eyes. Uther was engrossed in the newspapers and Demelza, eyeing me with sympathy, suggested that Tynan might like to teach me to play backgammon. The gentleman concerned opened one eye, sighed and said, with a noticeable lack of civility, “If you wish, cousin.”

  “I would not dream of disturbing you,” I said with mock huffiness. This had the effect of rousing him from his lethargy and, together, we knelt before the large sideboard and rummaged in its depths for the backgammon board.

  Tynan set up the board, explaining the game as he did so. It soon became apparent that he lacked both the patience and the inclination to be a good teacher. Before long, the proceedings had deteriorated into an undignified squabble.

  “Really, hweg,” Tynan informed me loftily. “If you are not prepared to listen when I try to explain the rules to you—”

  “Explain?” I demanded, my words buzzing with annoyance. Uther glanced up from his newspaper and threw Demelza a questioning look. She gave a tiny shake of her head and their exchange only fired my frustration. If they wanted to swap cryptic looks that excluded me, let them! I stood up abruptly and Tynan rose, too. We faced each other across the board. “You have made no attempt to explain anything to me, Cousin Tynan. All you have done is lecture me in the most autocratic, unreasonable manner imaginable, and then shout at me when I get it wrong!”

  After staring at me for a blazing instant, Tynan suddenly burst out laughing, snatching me into his arms and whirling me about the room in an impromptu dance. At first I strained every muscle to break free, but then, suddenly, I started to laugh with him at the ridiculous figure we must cut. Uther watched us with an unfathomable expression on his perfectly carved features, while Demelza called out a light-hearted warning not to knock over the tea table.